Benad's Web Site

I thoroughly enjoyed this post by Jakob Nielsen that dives into Windows 8 usability issues, at least more than just scrolling issues. The issues are well indicated by his post, are easy to experience and reproduce, and are pretty well explained by somebody that's clearly been working in usability for over a decade.

What I found more entertaining was the backlash in the user comments when it was reposted on ZDNet. Ad-hominem attacks claiming that Nielsen is just a hack and not a usability expert, that users are stupid if they don't run back to the desktop mode, that all the issues are easily worked around and need a day of training, and so on.

But why? Windows 8 has been on the market for a month now, and as a consumer I don't see the point in trying to defend what is the de-facto monopolistic operating system people are stuck with, unless they go out of their way to buy a Mac or install Linux. Windows 8 is now the default, so why would anybody fanatically defend it, unless you work for Microsoft, is beyond me. Oh well, at least it's not as bad as YouTube comments.

Published on November 20, 2012 at 20:52 EST

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